Environmental Law Alert Blog

Through our Environmental Law Alert blog, West Coast keeps you up to date on the latest developments and issues in environmental law. This includes:

  • proposed changes to the law that will weaken, or strengthen, environmental protection;
  • stories and situations where existing environmental laws are failing to protect the environment; and
  • emerging legal strategies that could be used to protect our environment.

If you have an environmental story that we should hear about, please e-mail Andrew Gage. We welcome your comments on any of the posts to this blog – but please keep in mind our policies on comments.

2020 Canadian Law Blog Awards Winner

Do you, like us, think that governments and fossil fuel companies should be sued for what they have done to our atmosphere?

Last month Imperial Metals agreed to relinquish its mineral claims in the Skagit River Headwaters, about 37 kilometres east of Hope, BC, near the Canada-US border.

In the Before Times…

Two years ago, in February 2020, I bundled up and traveled to Ottawa to meet with MPs to discuss the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project (TMX). Little did I know that it would be my last work trip for a long time.

This op-ed was originally published in the Georgia Straight on December 17th, 2021.

The start of a New Year is a time for reflection as much as it is a time for celebration.

2021 has been BC’s Year of the Climate Disaster™.

The BC government’s response claims that these remarkable events were unforeseeable, Premier Horgan said when BC declared a state of emergency:

Shortly after the federal election, we reviewed the Liberty Party of Canada’s election platform. This post follows that post by analyzing the federal mandate letters, released on December 16, 2021.

The telling of true stories is necessary to remember our collective history across the globe. Specifically, this has become clear in recent discussions about the abundant life of Semá:th Lake (also known as Sumas Lake) in the Fraser Valley of BC, which once “reached from Chilliwack into Washington State.”

In 2021, British Columbia has been the poster child for what climate change looks like in Canada. This summer’s heat wave caused nearly 600 deaths, while recent catastrophic flooding resulted in at least four fatalities – in addition to devastating impacts on communities, infrastructure, wildlife and livestock. 

I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain

The catastrophic flooding in British Columbia will likely be the most costly climate disaster in Canadian history.